SSL devices generally use semiconductor light emitting diodes (“LEDs”), organic light emitting diodes (“OLEDs”), laser diodes (“LDs”), and/or polymer light emitting diodes (“PLEDs”) as sources of illumination rather than electrical filaments, a plasma, or a gas. FIG. 1 is a cross-sectional diagram of a portion of a conventional indium-gallium nitride (“InGaN”) LED 10. As shown in FIG. 1, the LED 10 includes a substrate 12 (e.g., silicon carbide, sapphire, gallium nitride, or silicon), an N-type gallium nitride (“GaN”) material 14, a GaN/InGaN multi quantum well (“MQW”) 16, and a P-type GaN material 18 on top of one another in series. The LED 10 also includes a first contact 20 on the P-type GaN material 18 and a second contact 22 on the N-type GaN material 14.
The GaN/InGaN materials of the LED 10 have a wurtzite crystal formation in which hexagonal rings of gallium (or indium) are stacked on top of hexagonal rings of nitrogen atoms. According to conventional techniques, the GaN/InGaN materials are typically grown on silicon wafers with the Si(1,1,1) crystal orientation. The GaN/InGaN materials are thus grown along a direction generally perpendicular to the hexagonal rings of gallium (or indium) and nitrogen atoms. As discussed in more detail later, the growth direction of the GaN/InGaN materials may negatively impact the optical efficiency of the LED 10. Also, silicon wafers with the Si(1,1,1) crystal orientation can be expensive to produce because conventional production techniques typically yield the Si(1,0,0) crystal orientation. Thus, chemical, thermal, and/or other types of additional processing may be required to expose and/or otherwise provide the Si(1,1,1) crystal facets. Accordingly, several improvements in increasing the optical efficiency while reducing the manufacturing costs of LEDs may be desirable.